Keyword: Lima

Lima, Helsinki, Tokyo (national capitals)

Lima, Green, Navy (types of bean)

Lima, Kilo, Romeo (NATO phonetic alphabet letters)

Lima, Banks, Moss (surnames of models)

Keyword: Spoon

Spoon, Fork, Kife (cutlery)

Spoon, Ladel, Scoop (to move food)

Spoon, Canoodle, Embrace (terms for cuddling)

Spoon, Castanet, Clave (handheld percussion instruments)

Keyword: Press

Press, Iron, Steam (ways to get rid of wrinkles in clothes)

Press, Zone, Man (defensive schemes in basketball)

Press, Curl, Row (weightlifting exercises)

Press, Hall, Bounce (_____ pass)

I made new friends recently by joining a local knitting/crochet circle! We meet on Sundays at a brewery. It's pretty great. We already know we share a common interest, so it was easy to start conversations.

I've recently become closer friends with a few of my coworkers after starting a video game club at work. There was a big push to create new clubs and interest groups at our company to foster engagement; a coworker of mine submitted a proposal for a gaming club that he fully expected to get rejected. Well we just had our third meeting this afternoon, and I now have several new friends!

Last June I started watching Bridgerton for the first time. Binged all 4 seasons (including the Queen Charlotte spinoff) in 2 weeks and needed more Bridgerton in my life. I found fanfiction and quickly became obsessed with reading Bridgerton fanfics. I found a few discord communities for fellow Polin (Penelope and Colin) fans. Now I have over a dozen friends around the world that I talk to daily about Bridgerton, fan fiction, and life in general. The most supportive, amazing people! Hard to believe I didn’t know most of them 6 months ago. If you’re a fan of something, seek those people out on social media and find discord communities (or the like). Truly been life changing for me.

I don't have many friends. I lost contact with all my high school friends after graduation and only made 1 friend in university who then moved away for grad school. For many years I didn't have any friends. Then a few months ago I decided to learn to play dungeons and dragons. A local board game cafe has weekly DnD - there's a drop in table that I played at for many weeks but the players were always changing and it wasn't consistent. One week there was no drop in table so one of the permanent tables said I could join them, we clicked so well that they said I could be a part of the party for good and one of them said they were my friend when I admitted I had none.

I've been loving learning the game and now I have friends!

That person that you see in your routines a few times a month and have a complimentary view of. Tell them your compliment of them. I apologize for the dangling prepositions everywhere.

Here's my script that I successfully used, "Excuse me, I have an odd compliment. I have noticed [insert compliment]. Thank you for doing that"

We ended up grabbing coffee a few days later and are now friends. The specific situation was this person who worked at my local food co-op was consistently bright, cheerful, and present in conversation. My compliment to them was that we can brighten our portion of the world and I appreciated them doing that when they didn't have to.

Ever been in a room with someone else's friend who is shy? My go-to trick is to act like you're in on something together. Be in cahoots with the other person. In this situation recently I managed to befriend this friend of a friend by joking around with our mutual friend, but I told the jokes to the friend of the friend, as if we were having a conversation. You do it conspiratorially, like they're the only other sane person in the room. In other situations where I've used this, sometimes I'll comment about what's going on around us and make sure they know I said it to them. It's better than small talk, you build connections faster. Once you've established this connection, people are much more amenable to answering questions about themselves. Be in cahoots, make that shy person in the room your friend!

My newest friend I met at a local brewery when I was walking around outside soothing my baby, and she said “sorry for being creepy, your baby is just so cute!” And we started talking and exchanged numbers and said “we should be friends”

My other newest friends are all people who live in our apartment complex. We’ve met them all in various ways, but mostly through intentionally planning courtyard gatherings to get to know each other, and then inviting each other over for dinner, etc. The newest neighbors we went from courtyard hellos to walking into our apartment without knocking was actually because four apartments did a combined thanksgiving, and asked permission to use the courtyard if we had an open invite for anyone to join. The one couple that took us up on the open invitation is the people who live directly above us, and now we sometimes make each other dinner or share desserts we made, or just come over to hang out!

Community can be all around when you make opportunities for it, and are bold enough to say “let’s be friends,” exchange numbers, and actually follow up.

I moved to a new city just under a year ago, and have found making new friends very difficult. There are a few people who I have met and wanted to befriend, but I have been too shy to suggest meeting up, always telling myself that they won't want to hang out with me. Last week I took the leap and messaged them, all of them responded, and now I have three friends in the city!

I volunteer! We moved to a totally new area 4 years ago, so I had to start from scratch with friends. My new friends are either scout leaders or volunteer at our local community pantry (my two volunteering roles).

We started just as colleagues, but soon found we had a love of hiking, or quizzes or travel photography (depending on the friend) and now I don’t know what I’d do without them.

Despite being a quite awkward and socially anxious person generally, I have made more new friends so far in 2025 than ever before in my life. Here is what I have learned:

1. Being honest and vulnerable makes other people comfortable being honest and vulnerable.

2. Doing something helpful for others will always make somebody's day better, including yours, even if it's small.

3. Looking for projects you want to work on will lead you to people who also want to work on those projects. And then you get to meet cool people doing cool stuff. Let someone teach you something new, and both of you will come away much richer. I went to an art meetup in my city at a homeschooling center, and some very nice people taught me how to make stencils and block prints! And I got to share my earring making hacks with them. Now I have cool art friends.

4. Food makes friendships. Bring the lady who lives across the hall a plate when you make too much food for seder, and you might end up getting invited over to her place for Mother's Day since your mom and her daughter both live too far away to visit. Love you, Phyllis.

5. Give people compliments! Everyone is having a rough time right now and sometimes it is just nice to know you were, in some small way, seen and appreciated by a stranger. (Just don't be a creep).

6. Allow yourself to reconnect with people. I ran into an old high school classmate on the street randomly, and it turns out we had been living a block away from each other for almost a year. After not talking for over half a decade, we have both slightly changed our daily routines to run into each other on our walks home. We weren't really friends then, but we are now.